Summer is the season of abundance and first harvest. Harvest traced the seed of true self on its arduous journey from birth, through death and dormancy, into flowering, we can look at the abundance that has grown up within us and ask, "Whom is this meant to feed? Where am I called to give my gifts?" In the summer of our lives, we learn more about whose we are, rooted in our knowledge of who we are.
The idealists among us tend to ask the "whose" question prematurely: we want to serve the world's needs, but we burn out trying to do more than we are able. I cannot give what I do not possess, so I need to know what gifts have grown up within me that are now ready to be harvested and shared. If the gifts I give are mine, grown from the seed of true self, I can give them without burning out. Like the fruit of a tree, they will replenish themselves in due season.
A circle of trust that follows the cycle of the seasons can help us become gardeners of our own souls. It can teach us what every good gardener knows - that life is a constant interplay between the powers within us, for which we are responsible, and the powers outside of us, over which we have little control. As we learn the choreography of the life that Thomas Merton called the "general dance" - a cocreative process in which we sometimes lead and sometimes follow - we can participate in it with more confidence and grace.
. pg. 83
So, as we look forward to summer with anticipation or anxiousness, where do you offer your gifts that are born out of your truest self...when you are being all YOU...what do you offer?
For me, I offer perspective. I at least hope I do. I can't help but stand in awe at creation, if it's in nature, in words, in Scripture, in people...and when I let myself stop and be mindful of that moment, I have perspective.
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